We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  “And I’ll winna Flamie fer sure?” said Nicky, stifling a hiccup.

  “Apsolutely,” said Heather. “Two if you publish any pro-Emilio stories though ’viously with discretion ’n’ stuff.”

  Somebody produced a pen.

  “Not yet,” said Julie Minh. Ever since her first Bartles & Jaymes she’d been haphazardly flinging her body around to the music. If somebody put on anything as good and wholesome as Huey Lewis and the News, she just might get raptured—she was so carefree and untethered to the world. “First you’s gotta tell us ’bout your face,” she said.

  Internally one of us shrieked. “Non, ma chérie,” said Mel Boucher. Le Splotch was tsk-tsking, Its lips pursed, the question a bridge too far.

  “No really, I’m not tryin’ to be mean, I just wanna know,” said Julie Minh. “Just give it to us straight. Is it, like, natural? Or is it some kinda deformity?”

  “It is a deformity,” said Nicky. She sounded grateful that someone had finally just asked. “You know your jaw keeps growing even after the rest of you stops. In rare cases it keeps growing until you’re twenty. For me, any day now the doctors will decide my jaw’s finished, and then they’ll break it and use a saw on it and wire me back together, and I won’t be able to talk or eat solid food for six whole weeks.”

  Heather Houston began salivating at the thought of all that ice cream.

  I wonder if at the same time they could do something about her nose, thought Girl Cory.

  Me, I’d get my rack reduced, thought Becca Bjelica.

  Thanks to the 80-proof Jim Beam, we began to get sloppy with our thoughts, slinging things out left and right.

  Abby, when you takes a shit, does it come out like soup or more like nuggets o’ gold?

  A little of both, she answered.

  Boy Cory, do you do it inna special sock or just in yer hand?

  Depends.

  Has anyone here ever made their own toes curl?

  How?

  Two hands at once.

  But y’only have one hole.

  Look a little closer, Poindexter. There’re two holes down there.

  Yeah, but only one of them’s fer that.

  As we sat in silence considering the merits of this statement, for the briefest of instants, some of us thought we heard the bleating of one lone and very cold cricket.

  Well, that’s debatable, but you still gots other nibbles ’n’ giblets down there. A second hand never hurt nobody.

  Yeah, that’s why they calls it a helpin’ hand.

  For the moment, we’d forgotten all about Emilio, all about the pen, all about signing Nicky Higgins and her Interim Chin up in our book of shadows and binding them to us forever. We went on among ourselves for quite a while, our uninhibited thoughts sliding among us like mental diarrhea. It was turning out to be a highly informative night. Heather Houston was surprised by how useful everything she’d learned in Unitarian Sex-Ed was turning out to be.

  In among the din Nicky pulled it out herself. She must’ve been bored, sensing something silently going on without her, only the sound of the one half-frozen cricket for company.

  “Is that what I think it is?” said Boy Cory. He was just back from peeing behind a tree.

  “Yup.” Most of us had never seen one before. It was a pretty new-looking board with a standard layout, though there was one big difference. In each upper corner where it should have said YES with a sun and NO with a moon, this Ouija board said WOOF and MEOW and had the corresponding animal to go with it.

  “What should we ask it?” said Heather Houston.

  “First, we gotta be in balance,” said Nicky. “Man, woman. One to ask the questions, the other to move the pointer.”

  We all looked to Boy Cory. He held up a finger, signaling for us to wait as he finished off the Bartles & Jaymes he’d been drinking. When done, he tossed the empty over his shoulder. “Ready,” he said, then discreetly belched.

  “You call that a burp?” said Sue Yoon.

  Boy Cory ignored her and sat down facing Nicky, their knees touching. Heather placed the board between them on their laps. “Okay,” said Nicky. “Now we gotta do some kinda ritual to call the spirits to us.”

  It took Heather a while to get her bag open. It was like watching a clown purposefully mess up picking up a rubber ball. “Imma little drunk,” she said to empty space. Once the zipper gave way she pulled out a thick blue candle and a Sharpie. “Guys, who we wanna be?” she asked. “Flavors Scanned or Confers Vandals?”

  “Confers Vandals,” said Mel Boucher. “Duh.”

  Heather scrawled our majickal name up the side of the candle. “Who’s got the kilt?” Little Smitty pointed to where her bag was lying open on the ground. Heather reached inside and began digging around. Then she made a puzzled face, like someone discovering a deformed pearl in their Oysters Rockefeller. She pulled the extra kilt out of Little Smitty’s bag along with something else, the thing a black hole in the night, drawing all the light to it. We leaned in for a closer look.

  “What the hell’s that?” said Becca Bjelica.

  “More like why the hell is that here?” said Abby Putnam.

  “It’s a Smith and Wesson .38 Special,” said Little Smitty, taking the gun from Heather. She spun the chamber to show that it was empty, not that that meant anything to most of us. “It was my granddad’s service revolver.”

  “Yeah, but why’d you bring it?” asked Sue Yoon.

  “Look around, we’re in the middle of nowhere,” said Little Smitty. “If we scream, nobody’ll hear us.”

  “Boy Cory’s here,” said Julie Minh. “Plus we got AJ.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” said AJ, whipping her head around so fast to glare at Julie Minh that Girl Cory had to duck the wrath of her flying braids.

  “It just means you’re strong,” said Julie Minh. “And I seriously doubt that if we screamed nobody would hear it,” she added, though soon enough she’d prove Little Smitty right.

  “Look, let’s not argue,” said Abby. “Put that away and let’s get on with it.”

  Little Smitty zipped the gun up in a small triangular bag, then buried it in her backpack, but not before brandishing the .38 Special in the air and saying, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” She then spread the kilt out on the ground and lit the candle. “We got big dreams,” she intoned, emphasizing the coming rhyme as she held the candle up to the moon, “and muchas Jim Beam.” She nodded to Girl Cory, who then proceeded to pour some of Kentucky’s finest directly on the ground. Lastly, Little Smitty placed the candle on the kilt along with a few empty Bartles & Jaymes bottles. “Good ’nough?” she asked. Nicky gave her the thumbs-up.

  “Okay, I’ll ask the questions,” Nicky said. “You just put yer fingertips on the pointer.”

  “Like this?” asked Boy Cory.

  “Too much,” said Nicky. “More like this.” We crowded around watching as if someone were choking. “Hey,” said Nicky. “Give us some room.”

  “Circle up,” yelled Jen Fiorenza. We made a big circle on the ground with our sticks, a circle of power. Step outside it and anything could happen. Heck, nothing was stopping anything from happening while inside it either. Little Smitty got the fire going again by pouring some Jim Beam on the embers. In the firelight, we could really see only one another’s faces, our clothing dark, our navy-blue varsity jackets with the big blue D sewn right over our hearts. Our Gathering was starting to look respectable. It was a far cry from the clothing-optional dance party we’d thrown when we buried Marilyn Bunroe at midfield, but you had to work with whatever the moon and the stars would give you. By our estimation, any self-respecting spirit should’ve wanted to come into our presence—we had that certain je ne sais quoi, no?

  “Y’always start the pointer on the letter G,” Nicky explained.

/>   “Why?” asked Becca Bjelica.

  “Really?” said Julie Minh. “That’s what yer gonna question about this whole thing?”

  Nicky ignored them both. “You here?” she asked, obviously not addressing any of us but the Great Beyond. The moon was still acting like a mummy lumbering aimlessly across the sky, trailing her wrappings behind her. The planchette suddenly zipped across the board straight to WOOF. “That was totally you,” said Nicky.

  Boy Cory looked a little sheepish. “Maybe,” he said.

  “You don’t hafta do anything,” she said. “Just keep yer fingers on it.”

  “Okay, okay.” He moved the pointer back to G.

  “Spirits of the night,” Nicky said. She sounded like Vincent Price in the “Darkness Falls Across the Land” monologue on Thriller. “Step into our circle.” Nothing happened. We turned down the volume on Def Leppard. “Are you here?” she repeated.

  This time the pointer moved much more slowly, even circling the word a few times before finally landing on WOOF.

  “You man or woman?”

  MEOW.

  “Plant or animal?”

  MEOW.

  “Mineral or star?”

  MEOW.

  “Coke or Pepsi?” said Mel Boucher.

  “Seriously, what else is there?” said Sue Yoon.

  “Ask if it’s a kid,” said Julie Minh.

  “Are you a child?” repeated Nicky.

  WOOF.

  “Good one, Julie Minh,” said Becca Bjelica.

  “What’s yer name?”

  We watched as the pointer slowly made its way around the board.

  B-E-T-

  “Oh God, spelling,” said Jen Fiorenza.

  T-Y.

  “Bet-ty, Bet-ty, Bet-ty,” chanted AJ Johnson.

  “Are you Betty Rubble from the Flintstones?” Abby Putnam asked in all seriousness.

  “I am not askin’ that,” said Nicky.

  “Are you Betty Parris?” said Heather Houston.

  “Who?”

  “Just ask.”

  “Are you Betty Parris?”

  We watched as the pointer moved first to MEOW, then veered hard left to WOOF.

  Heather almost peed herself. “Betty Parris was the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Parris,” she explained. “She was one of the original afflicted girls. She was like nine years old when the whole thing started.”

  Le Splotch sarcastically started a slow clap.

  “Yeah, I’m with Mel,” said Jen Fiorenza. “If we ask all these lame-ass questions, we’re gonna be here all night.”

  “What do you suggest?” said Abby Putnam. It began to dawn on some of us that we’d never actually seen Abby partake of any of the Jim Beam.

  “Let’s just gets to the big stuff.” The Claw drunkenly rolled Its finger in the air, the international sign for speed this puppy up. “Ask it what we gotta do to win States.”

  “What should we do, oh all-knowing spirit, in order to win the Division 1 women’s field hockey state championship at Worcester Polytechnical College on December 8th, 1989?” said Heather Houston. We all stared at her. “What?” she said.

  “I agree,” said Nicky. “People in ghost stories are always vague about askin’ fer what they want, like money and stuff. Then they get it by havin’ their leg chopped off or whatever and collectin’ the insurance. We can’t leave any room fer chance.” Slowly she repeated Heather’s question word for word as best she could.

  The one cricket that had followed us out to the homestead must have decided that that particular moment was too rich for his blood and packed it in. We sat there for a long time in total complete silence, the moon slowly revealing herself as night, like a surgeon, unbandaged her face. We held our breath. What would be revealed? A beauty or a monster? Then the pointer began to move.

  S-A-C-

  “See you real soon,” sang Abby Putnam.

  “Fermé la bouche.”

  R-I-

  “I’m already lost,” said Jen Fiorenza.

  F-I-

  “Can we buy another vowel?” said Sue Yoon.

  C-

  “For real, guys,” said Boy Cory. “I am not moving this.”

  E.

  We sat there and sat there, the Jim Beam keeping us in a daze. “What’d we spell?” Becca finally asked.

  “Sacrifice,” said Heather softly.

  We could feel the hair standing up on our arms through our polar fleeces.

  “Yeah, as in we’ve made a lot of sacrifices this season,” said Abby cheerfully. “We’ve given up a lot to get this far.”

  “I haven’t given up anything,” said Girl Cory. “I keyed my mom’s car and got a Mercedes.”

  “Same here,” said AJ. “I’m student council president, and even I forgot to vote for me.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t vote for you either,” admitted Little Smitty. “Plus I also haven’t made any sacrifices.”

  “Waddya mean?” said Abby Putnam. “You lost Marilyn Bunroe.”

  “Marilyn Bunroe was eight years old. That’s like a hundred ’n’ fifty in human years. Honestly, I colored her hair. She was totally gray.”

  Nicky decided to go back to the source for clarification. “What kinda sacrifice do you mean?” she said in her Vincent Price voice.

  Boy Cory closed his eyes. We all saw him do it. His eyes were totally closed. There was no way he was peeking.

  H-U-M-

  “No,” said Abby. Who knows how she saw it coming. Maybe it’s because she was sober. “Absolutely not.”

  A-N.

  “I don’t think it’s done yet,” said Heather.

  Boy Cory still had his eyes closed. The pointer seemed to be agitated. It began to toggle back and forth between the letter E and the word GOODBYE printed at the bottom of the board. Then Julie Minh let out a gut-blasting scream that even twenty-seven acres might not have been enough to cover. She ran forward and snatched the pointer off the board, turned, and threw it as hard as she could into the woods. “Light from Light,” she said, “true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things came into being.” It took us a while to realize she was basically cracking up. What had we been thinking? In one season she’d come a long way, baby—she’d even had her nipples thumbed!—but consulting the dead through the occult was too much. Then she threw up right on the fire, which only stoked the flames that much more due to all the alcohol in her barf, and with that, the Ouija portion of our night came to an end.

  The next day under swollen clouds we beat Winthrop 1-0 in overtime in what was easily the most physically excruciating game of our lives, our heads pounding as if we’d laid them down on an anvil and held them there while the Roman god Vulcan worked us over. Winthrop was the birthplace of Heather Houston’s favorite writer, Sylvia Plath, a mid-century American poet who knew a thing or two about Ouija boards and the mystical.

  By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.

  I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.

  The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid:

  A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.

  A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.

  If he were I, he would do what I did.

  Was Plath sure about that? If “some god” were us, He probably wouldn’t have been stupid enough to mix the triumvirate of Jim Beam and Bartles & Jaymes on empty stomachs. Maybe we should’ve just asked Betty Parris if we would all be in a world of pain the next day. Hell, even the frozen cricket could have answered that one. One chirp for yes, two chirps for HELL YES.

  4. Name three people you admire and discuss why.

  For your consideration, here are twenty:

  Bridget Bishop (née Playfer;
hung June 10, 1692)

  Rebecca Nurse (née Towne; hung July 19, 1692)

  Sarah Good (formerly Poole, née Solart; hung July 19, 1692)

  Elizabeth Howe (née Jackson; hung July 19, 1692)

  Susannah Martin (née North; hung July 19, 1692)

  Sarah Wildes (née Averill; hung July 19, 1692)

  George Burroughs (hung August 19, 1692)

  George Jacobs Sr. (hung August 19, 1692)

  Martha Carrier (née Allen; hung August 19, 1692)

  John Proctor (hung August 19, 1692)

  John Willard (hung August 19, 1692)

  Martha Corey (hung September 22, 1692; wife of Giles Corey)

  Mary Eastey (née Towne; hung September 22, 1692)

  Mary Parker (née Ayer; hung September 22, 1692)

  Alice Parker (hung September 22, 1692)

  Ann Pudeator (hung September 22, 1692)

  Wilmot Redd (hung September 22, 1692)

  Margaret Scott (hung September 22, 1692)

  Samuel Wardwell Sr. (hung September 22, 1692)

  Giles Corey (pressed to death September 19, 1692)

  I think it’s pretty obvious why I admire these folks. Rather than besmirch their godly reputations, these guys and gals all chose death over dishonor. Their crimes were various. The first to be strung up, Bridget Bishop, was a businesswoman and tavern owner who reportedly liked to wear red. Giles Corey got crushed to death because he wouldn’t enter a plea either way, innocent or guilty. Without a plea, the state couldn’t try him. Without a trial, his family got to inherit his estate. He weren’t no dummy. Talk about a tough ole bird.

  Anyway, these people put their money where their mouths were. For them, it wasn’t about appearance so much as about the true fire way down deep inside. I wish I were like that. My mom these days is all about the surface. Sadly, maybe I am too. On the other hand, maybe these essays are my small pathetic attempt to get beyond the bullshit. So much surrounding the college application industrial complex just feels like hoop jumping. Maybe this is me saying I will jump no more, y’all.